


Infinite Reflection

by Mertiya



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And he definitely gets a little dark in there with the revenge angle, But he's very very done, Fallout from Emotional Abuse, Healthy B though, I had a request for 'Jace rescues Ral for a change', Infinite Consortium, Jace goes Grixis I guess?, M/M, Took me a while but here we are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 16:33:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12730224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: What if Liliana had made her move earlier?  What if Jace had fled the Consortium when he realized what she was up to?  And what if, coincidentally, he'd turned up half-dead on a certain wannabe Izzet's doorstep?





	Infinite Reflection

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to paperclipminizer for the request of "Jace rescuing Ral" and talbot-drake for the tumblr ask that eventually spun off into this fic: http://elspethsunschampion.tumblr.com/post/122719149032/au-where-tezzerret-cant-spell-it-for-my-life. Thanks also to the gay scientist people (you know who you are) for giving me the tools to write a Grixis Jace without eviscerating his character or upsetting the hell out of me.

Jace squinted into the pantry of Ral’s little kitchen. Pickled beets stared back at him, and he sighed. The motion sent pain jarring through the healing injury in his side. Cursing, Jace leaned forward for a moment until it subsided. They really needed to purchase something other than pickled beets, but there had been a sale several weeks ago, and the thing about being a fugitive living with an impoverished student was that the household didn’t tend to have much money lying around. Even if he’d wanted to, going back to blackmail would have been a really bad idea. Too easy to track him if he did that.

            Pulling a face, Jace let the cupboard door shut. He really should force himself to eat something; the deep, puckered cut in his side was healing reasonably well, but even the minimal amounts of healing magic he had learned from Emmara wouldn’t be sufficient if his body had no sustenance with which to rebuild. Well, Ral was supposed to be bringing back something from the Golgari today, at any rate.

            He heard the door at the bottom of the little tenement building open and close. The building was rickety at the best of times, and the walls were paper-thin, but at least Jace always knew when Ral was getting back. It was comforting, really, at one level—

            _Jace, get—fuck—out of here—_

            Ral’s mental voice was incredibly faint and tinged with a little fear and a lot of pain, the source of which Jace couldn’t determine. Immediately, he began a rapid mental scan of the building, and it didn’t take long to zero in on Ral’s mind, surrounded by two others, which were eminently familiar. Jace swallowed, the fear hitting him so hard that for a moment he felt dizzy. Tezzeret and Liliana had found him.

            _Follow the plan_. All Jace had wanted was to forget about everything to do with the Infinite Consortium and maybe win admission to the Izzet, but he’d known that Tezzeret and Liliana tracking him down was a real possibility, especially if he stayed on Ravnica. Especially given that Liliana still thought that was part of _their_ plan. And with his injury only now beginning to really heal, he had had no chance to leave, even if he’d wanted to.

            That was his initial thought—just run. But initially the injury he’d taken from Tezzeret had been worse than planned, and then—well, he could planeswalk now, anyway, but fuck if he was going to leave Ral. He’d thought he was in love with Liliana, and then he’d found out what she really wanted with him, and Jace had thought that that was it. He was never going to let anyone do that to him again.

            But—Ral wasn’t like Liliana. He was angry all the time, and he wasn’t exactly easy to get along with, but he’d also taken Jace in when he was literally bleeding to death on the doorstep, and he—well—he definitely hadn’t _tried_ to seduce Jace. Ral was trying to win admission to the League—what was left of it, anyway—and he’d been working on a gauntlet that would filter mana and transform it into a more readily usable form. And Jace had just—been bored—and they’d started bouncing ideas off each other, and one thing had led to another, and they’d woken up in bed together the next day, with a half-completed gauntlet on the floor nearby. If anyone had done the seducing, Jace was pretty sure it was him.

            _Follow the plan_. Tremblingly, Jace reached for the flare tucked beneath the windowsill, pulled it out, and set it off. It rocketed into the sky behind their apartment, going off with a screech and a dull thud. That was step one. Maree and Prax would be here soon. Step two was harder, because step two consisted of both remaining alert and also readying himself to planeswalk. The little round stone that Jace had stolen from Tezzeret sat hard in his pocket, reassuring and foreboding at once. He took a deep breath, reached for something in his core, took another deep breath and felt the tug of the Eternities bright-dark at his back.

            When the door smashed inwards, Jace was ready. He caught a glimpse of Ral, half-sagging between Liliana and Tezzeret, and then all three faded as he let himself fall backwards into the unreality between worlds.

            He knew the way, but it was still disorienting. Everything shifted out here; there were no landmarks of any planar sort to follow, just the tang and the way the currents of mana moved and ran together. The only pathway, such as there was, was dynamic, but then a walker in the Eternities was little more than a dynamic pattern themselves, held together mostly by will, although on this journey, Jace had to admit to having a little help.

            The walk was faster than usual, sharp; Jace felt the normal currents burn ice-hot across his skin, simultaneously painful and exhilarating, and gone from one moment to the next. He was spat out from the influx of blue mana that swirled slowly in a grand spiral, marking Ravnica, and he careened along outwards, nearly misjudging his trajectory, nearly missing the little trickle of corrosive blackness, but not quite. At the last possible moment, he adjusted, the sphere of metal he had left in his pocket burning with white heat that he hoped would be enough to obscure the telltale marks of the trail. It had taken quite a bit of research to determine the correct location.

            For three more heartbeats, he was smeared across nothingness; he was a vibration of jangled thoughts with no more cohesion than a wave rippling through water, and then, with a twang like a breaking string, he fell into reality. The weight of the globe lay heavy in his hand, and it was as cold as if it had been left in an icebox for hours. Shivering violently, he turned to the side and threw up, expelling the last remnants of pickled beets from his system. He swallowed, tried to stand back up, and threw up again, this time bringing up nothing but white foam and stinging bile.

            All he wanted to do was run and keep running, but he forced himself to wipe the back of his mouth with his hand and straighten up. Three deep breaths, three heartbeats more, and he felt the Eternities open again. Liliana had followed him.

            She was lovely, her chest rising and falling in exertion, a slightly too-bright flush on her cheeks, one lock of hair slightly askew in a way Jace was almost—but not certain—was artifice rather than accident. Taking a step forward, she kissed him, and Jace forced himself to respond as eagerly as he would have just a few weeks ago, reaching for the small of her back. “It’s working,” she murmured to him. “Tezzeret will be occupied with that Izzet boy for hours. You’re doing an amazing job.”

            Jace felt a shudder run through him at that and barely managed to suppress the urge to retch for a third time. What was happening to Ral? The air around them was becomingly almost imperceptibly colder, and he pushed his hand into Liliana’s hair and kissed his way down her jaw. “ _We’re_ doing an amazing job,” he told her fiercely. “We’re going to manage this. We’re going to take the Consortium.”

            “And no one will ever be able to hurt us again.” She put a tender hand on his cheek, and he somehow smiled back, though he was listening intently. There it was, the tap of claws against the stone of the cave floor. Liliana started to draw back, frowning. “What’s that, Jace?”

            “Ah, Liliana, so good of you to join me.” The dragging of a metal blade against stone.

            “Sorry, Lili,” Jace said, watching the dawning horror on her face. “I’m not letting anyone hurt _me_ again. That goes for you, too.” She tried a confused laugh, but she was already feeling for the Eternities, wincing and staggering suddenly. Jace held up the Infinity Globe, still so chilly against his fingertips that they ached, and watched her face grow even paler. “I know you were going to give me to the dragon, Liliana. I know about your plan to betray the demons.”

            “Jace—I had to.” Fear in her face; she looked so small and vulnerable that it froze him nearly through, ice spearing up along his chilly arm. _She would have done this to you._ He’d seen the inside of her head. She would have felt badly, but she would have done it just the same.

            “Yeah, well. Then I guess I have to do this.”

            “ _Fine_ ,” Liliana spat. Black mana surged, and Jace dived to the side, hastily drawing on his own manabonds as he did so. Three different images of himself split and ran in different directions as the real Jace stealthily and invisibly snuck backwards.

            “Really, Liliana, I am so disappointed that you were planning to renege on our deal,” rumbled the demon, stalking forward with a grin, his bladed hands still tracing against the stone floor with an unsettling scraping noise.

            Jace could feel the black mana currents swirling, rising, but this was not Grixis. With an effort that made him dizzy, he pictured the overflowing rivers pouring into the Lake of Herons. Water thundered in his ears; mana rose in his mind. He held up a hand, and Liliana’s spell petered out. She shrieked in outrage, and then she shrieked again, a higher, more animal sound. Jace heard the flat, wet sound of blade encountering flesh, and her pain roared through his mind.

            _Jace,_ she was begging. _Help me._ He wanted to look away, but if he did, it would mean that he cared what happened to her. He didn’t care. He couldn’t let himself care. If he did, she’d drain him dry.

_You would have done this to me_ , he told her. And he watched, as the demon levered her head to the side, ducked its head, and fastened its teeth in her throat. Jace had never heard anyone make a sound like that. It twisted its head, and there was blood on its jaws; Liliana’s scream thinned into something more like a teakettle whistling. Her flesh was stretching—not like rubber, no, not like that at all, but flesh shouldn’t _pull_ like that—stretching and parting and it _hurt_ , Jace could feel the agony deep in his own throat, but he gritted his teeth and held her there, held her still, with mind and will and globe, because he didn’t trust that even the blade of the demon would be enough to hold her now.

            Things became blurred. Jace’s mind seemed to split itself, half of it screaming in pain, the other half simply watching and cataloguing. There was a great deal of blood and viscera. He had never thought about how ragged the edges of torn flesh looked, nor how much harder it was to part meat before it was cooked. The funny thing, Jace thought, as he stared, was that he _didn’t_ feel guilty. He’d thought he would, really. Eventually. He was in pain—rapidly fading at this point as Liliana’s brain poured more and more adrenaline into her system—but everything else was just empty.

            _Is there something wrong with me?_ Jace wondered. He should be throwing up. He should be— _reacting—_ for Krokt’s sake. But he didn’t feel guilt. He didn’t feel sickness, or fear, or any of the emotions he ought to be feeling. Instead, he felt—safe. _No one is going to hurt me again. Ever._ What was pain compared to that?

            Something switched off. Jace’s breath was coming so fast he felt giddy, and there was blood on the walls, but Liliana’s mind was missing. She was gone. She was gone, and the demon was turning towards him, but, with the Infinity Globe in his hand, it was so easy for Jace to rip the world open and fling himself out of it again, alone.

            Alone.

            The journey was brief but wrenching; Jace felt himself opened and gutted like a fish on a slab, burning as if he’d swallowed a star, and then the Eternities spat him out panting onto the floor of Ral and Maree’s makeshift lab.

            “Great, there you are,” Prax told him. “We saw your flare. I’m readying the gauntlet and Maree’s gone to see if Ral’s okay. Time to deal with Bad Shit, right?”

            Weakly, Jace nodded.

            “Is that your blood?” the little goblin asked, and, this time, Jace shook his head. Glancing down at himself, he realized he was sticky with it, spattered across his face and hands, soaking through the hem of his cloak.

            “Gauntlet,” he managed hoarsely. “Is it working?”

            “Best we can tell,” Prax returned. “It disrupts the flow of mana through mizzium just fine, but we haven’t been able to test it much on the other metal.”

            “It’ll have to do.” Jace mopped his sleeve across his face. “Give it here.”

            It wasn’t very elegant, barely more than a collection of scrap metal welded together in the shape of a hand, with wires jutting out of it at weird angles, but it was the best they could do with the materials they had to hand. It would have to do, Jace thought, sliding it securely onto his hand and connecting it to the power source, which was technically portable but so heavy that it generally took at least two hands and sometimes two people. “I’ll get it,” Prax told him.

            Between the two of them, they managed to maneuver it out the door of the lab; it took perilous precision to get down the stairs of the shoddy, half-abandoned building without either dropping the power source or slipping, but in the end they managed. Jace was sweating, and Prax’s face was pale and pinched as they hurried across the street and into the tenement across the road. God, Jace hoped Tezzeret hadn’t taken Ral anywhere, because if he had—what was he _doing_ to Ral, was Ral all right, of course he wasn’t all right, not with Tezzeret—

            Jace was reaching out with his mind by the time they were at the second floor, but he heard Ral’s screams audibly before they crashed into him mentally. The cold pain that seared into his mind a second later made Jace want to vomit, and he had to pull back. The manablade. Tezzeret was using the manablade on Ral. _Krokt_ , no.

            With strength he hadn’t known that he had, Jace flung himself up the stairs and practically tore the door open. “Tezzeret!”

            Icy fear coursed through Jace’s veins as Tezzeret turned to face him, manablade dripping red, face an expressionless mask. Ral was on their dingy couch, facedown, a set of metal restraints holding him in place, and blood on his back, his legs, soaking the ragged remnants of his shirt and trousers.

            The gauntlet had better work, because if it didn’t, Jace was pretty sure he was dead. Tezzeret stalked towards him, the manablade in his flesh hand, his other hand crackling with energy. Jace took a deep breath and wondered, if this didn’t work, if he would die before Ral did. Maybe he even deserved to die, but Ral didn’t. He twisted the dial on the gauntlet, feeding mana into it from his bonds, the fountains of New Prahv, and the dirtier rivers of the Eighth, and the hot magma that ran miles deep beneath the Undercity, until the gauntlet hummed with power.

            By the time he’d done that, Tezzeret had reached him. Jace had time for a surprised yelp before he was lifted off his feet into the air, the metal arm closing tightly about his throat. “You little traitor,” Tezzeret growled. “When I give you to Baltrice, I hope you scream for longer than your Izzet hopeful.”

            _Ral_. Jace twisted the dial on the gauntlet the other way—and _hoped_.

            For a moment, nothing happened. Then the gauntlet made a coughing, screeching noise like metal rending, and energy blazed up so hot and white that it was blinding. The explosion flung Jace backwards, and he crashed into the wall, sending pain tingling through the web of scars on his own back.

            After a moment, he managed to push himself back into a standing position, but his vision was still a hazy green blur, and he reached out with his mind instead. He found Tezzeret easily enough, thoughts blurred and disjointed, riddled with pain, on the floor, arm twitching without his control. Then Prax, who had followed him, and Maree, who had been hiding in the kitchen, waiting for them to get here, and finally—

            “ _Ral_!” Somehow the lightning mage had made it to his feet, flanked on either side by Maree and Prax. As Jace’s vision cleared, he could see the ragged strips of shirt fluttering like flags around Ral’s naked, bloody torso, and, even from across the room, Jace could hear his breathing, rough with pain. “Mother of storms—Ral—are you—”

            “C’mon,” Ral muttered. “I want to kick that son of a bitch in the balls.” He took one step and then another, and then his legs gave out, and the two goblins hastily lowered him to the ground. Jace stumbled over Tezzeret’s convulsing form getting to him.

            “Shit, Ral, are you—” Ral took a ragged breath and leaned against Jace, and that alone was enough to tell him how badly his lover was injured.

            “I can’t feel it,” Ral gritted out. “I can’t—I can’t feel the _storm_ , Jace.”

            “You’re going to be okay,” Jace heard his voice saying.           

            “I’d fucking _better_ be. Did you deal with the ex?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Great. Good. Baal—” he panted, “—this really hurts a lot.”

            There had to be something he could do. Baltrice hadn’t died of her injuries, but Tezzeret had deliberately taken care not to hurt her too badly. If Ral couldn’t feel his connection to the mana at all—Jace didn’t know what that would do to someone. This hadn’t been part of the plan. It should have been. He should have expected the manablade.

            Maree was kneeling beside the two of them as well. “What now?” she asked quickly, chewing on one long, bulbous finger.

            “I—I don’t know.” Jace’s face was wet, and he scrubbed at it desperately with one hand. “This wasn’t—this wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m so sorry, Ral, I should’ve known that he would—”

            “Shut up,” Ral grunted. “Just let me kick the bastard a few times where it hurts.”

            “I know someone who might help.” Would she? Would Emmara do anything else for him, or would she turn them away? Would it be enough? Would there be _time_? Ral’s breathing was already growing faint.

            “Jace—” Ral had one arm crooked against his chest, apparently trying to stem the bleeding, the other one clutching at Jace’s collar. “The storm—I just—I need it back.”

            “Okay. Okay.” _Think_ , Jace ordered himself. No plan? Fine. Time to make a new plan. His eye fell on the discarded gauntlet, lying beside Tezzeret’s body. “Maree,” he said. “Get me that, and Prax, help me get Ral out to the streets. There’s a spot near the entrance to the Undercity—just come on, we don’t have any time to lose.”

            Jace wasn’t nearly as skilled as Emmara, but he’d seen her work. With _enough_ mana—it would be enough. It would have to be. He wasn’t going to lose the only person who’d ever cared about him for himself.

            Putting an arm under Ral’s shoulder, he got him to his feet, though it was a struggle. “Come on,” he told Ral. “Don’t tell me you’re giving up.”

            Ral shot him a glare. “I—don’t— _give_ _up_ ,” he gritted out between his teeth.

            “Good, because I’m never going to forgive you if you do,” Jace told him. “And also I will tell _everyone_ about it. I will spend years telling every person who will listen about the man I loved who _gave up and died_ on me.”

            “You asshole,” Ral spat, but his feet were moving now, and together Jace and Prax were able to maneuver him out the door of the little apartment. The stairs were the next big obstacle. Ral’s knees were weak, and Jace had to take nearly all his weight. They leaned sideways into the banister, while Prax helped direct them and kept Ral from tipping over too far.

            The street was a little easier. Ral’s breathing steadied now that he was no longer having to bend his knees and struggle down a slope, but he was drenched in sweat and blood, and he continued to lean heavily against Jace. “Next time you have a maniac out for your blood, I swear by Selesnya I am not helping you,” he growled.

            “I’m really hoping to avoid a next time,” Jace panted. He was starting to struggle as well; Ral was _heavy_ , and Prax was too short to help much. Maree hurried beside them, the gauntlet clutched between her hands.

            “What are you planning?” she muttered to Jace tersely. “I’d rather not watch Ral die.”

            “I’m going to get his connection to mana back,” Jace said solidly. “And I’m going to heal him.”

            “How exactly are you planning to do that?”

            “I’m—I’m going to use the gauntlet,” Jace told her. “It’s going to work. I’m going to make it work. He’s not going to die.”

            Maree bit her lip. “I guess you know more about what’s going on than I do,” she said. “But I’m not going to let you off the hook, new kid. I’m trusting you. You better be right about this.”

            “I am,” Jace said. _I have to be_.

            They reached the location he’d referred to within five minutes. Ral groaned as Prax helped Jace carefully set him against the wall. Jace squatted beside him, taking the gauntlet from Maree. “You remember this spot, right?” he said, rather desperately making conversation. “We found a natural upwelling of mana here when we were testing Maree’s refinements on the detector?”

            Ral’s eyelids fluttered; he was pale and sweating, his breathing horribly shallow. “Yeah,” he managed. “Yeah. Fuck, I’m cold.”

            “I know.” Jace felt sick, but he kept moving. Taking the gauntlet from Maree, he pushed Ral’s limp hand into it, and forced his own hand in as well. It wasn’t built to hold two people, and the metal groaned in protest. Ral shook his hand a little, but he no longer seemed to be fully conscious and made no other protest.

            “Here we go.” Jace stared up at the spot that Maree’s detector had indicated as having the highest concentration of mana, and then, taking a deep breath, he drove the gauntlet directly into it.

            Colored sparks flew, but the gauntlet did its job—although Jace staggered slightly under the onslaught of raw mana, that was all. _White_. _I need white_. Grimly, he played with the dial on the gauntlet, desperately trying to tune it to filter correctly. Beside him, Ral slumped limply against the wall, his form outlined in a flickering glow that seemed to wash across him without effect. It wasn’t enough. The manablade was still poisoning him, cutting off his connection to the magic, and how could Jace heal him like that?

            Fuck it. Jace pulled Ral’s hand out of the gauntlet, hooked it through his naked elbow, and turned the dial up to maximum, well past the little red safety indicator that they’d painted there when they were constructing the thing.

            He thought he was probably screaming. He was definitely mostly blind; the only thing he could see was the incandescent shape of the gauntlet in front of him. The raw mana burned as it ran up his arm and then fountained outward in all directions from his chest. _Heal_ , Jace thought, trying to hold onto the feeling of Emmara’s spells in his head, push them from his fingers into Ral’s. _Heal. Damn you._

Mana crackled in his ears, and the fire grew in his chest, burning through his throat and his stomach. Vaguely, Jace wished he had a more solid grasp on mana current theory; it wasn’t the kind of thing he would have expected to save his life, but if he died now, it was probably because it would have if he’d only had it. That—didn’t make sense, did it? Admittedly, he was a little distracted. His eyeballs felt as if they were going to boil out of the top of his skull.

            _Come on, hold on, heal._ Mana fountained out of his fingers, and it sizzled where it hit the ground. Ral’s voice was groaning, and both of the goblins were yelling. And then he felt a ripple in the flow of the white, like a river diverted into its tributary. Ral’s arm spasmed in his, and Jace knew he couldn’t do anything delicate, but he had enough of a crude expertise to be able to push Ral’s body to heal itself and to—crucially—start it regenerating the blood it had lost.

            Gritting his teeth, he kept pushing. He felt—he was sure he felt—a response. “Come on,” Jace said. “Ral. Please. _Please_.” Quite suddenly, he was on the ground, and green and purple dots were almost blotting out his vision. He could feel the cold sludge of the Undercity soaking through his trousers, but that was all. “Ral?” he said faintly. _Please, no. I have to keep healing him. I have to—_

_Not good enough_ , said a voice in his head, and Jace pressed his hands to his eyes, because the voice was right. He should have foreseen this. He should have planned for it, and now he’d lost—the only thing that he thought he cared about anymore. There was a low wailing noise in his ears.

            “—ce, shut up, Krokt!” Hands on his shoulders. “Jace!” Arms around him. “Can you even hear me?”

            “R-Ral?”

            “I’m okay. Are you okay?” Jace took a deep gulp of air, feeling forward. Ral’s bare chest beneath his hands was sticky with blood and ridged with scarring, but there was no new blood leaking out, no ragged-edged open wounds. “Baal, I thought you were—I thought—” He was gasping now; it was so hard to draw breath. “I thought I’d lost you,” he gulped, and then his face was buried in Ral’s chest, and he was sobbing, because it was all too much.

            “Fuck, Beleren, don’t get salt in my wounds,” Ral said, but his voice was almost gentle. “Also, maybe we could get out of the mud at some point. I know my shirt is ruined already, but the trousers might still be salvageable.”

            “You asshole,” Jace snarled, but he was still holding onto Ral for dear life. “You absolute—I thought—”

            Ral looked down at the gauntlet lying between them. It was smoking gently. “Did you actually think?” he asked, sounding almost genuinely curious. “Theoretically speaking, I’m not sure what you did, but then you understand the theory behind the manablade better than I do—and it looks like the gauntlet did redirect the mana that was being put into it, just like it was supposed to.” He pursed his lips together. “We should go somewhere and write this up.”

            “We should go somewhere and _get some sleep_ ,” Jace snapped.

            “Oh, sleep.” Ral waved his hand airily, then winced. “Okay, maybe a little rest.”

            Prax cleared his throat. “You’re both marching right back to your apartment and going to bed,” he said. “Ral, you were being tortured, and Jace, you just did something insanely risky and probably practically fried yourself. Yes, I know that’s only a little worse than last Tuesday, but even scientists need to sleep.”

            Maree nodded. “Today has already been—” she seemed to be searching for words.

            “I’m sorry,” Jace said miserably, finally slumping down. “It’s—it’s my fault, all of this. They wouldn’t have come for you if it hadn’t been for me.”

            “Shut _up_ , Jace,” everybody chorused, sounding exasperated.

            “We’re all fine,” Maree said irritably. “And the gauntlet worked as expected, and Ral’s not dead, and both of the people who were trying to kill you _are_. So let’s just go from there, shall we?”

            “But—” Jace tried to object.

            “No buts!” Maree returned.

            “I really—” he tried again.

            “Ral, kiss him.”

            “Wh—”

            “I don’t know if even that will shut him up, but I’ll try.” Before Jace could voice another objection, Ral was leaning forward, brushing Jace’s hair behind his ear. Tingling warmth ran through Jace’s cheek at the light touch of Ral’s hand, and then Ral’s lips were on his, and he shut his eyes, because he thought he’d never feel this again.

            “But really—” he tried to say. Ral’s hand caught at his waist, drawing him closer, and Ral nipped at his bottom lip, drawing a sudden, wordless groan out of him.

            “Told you it wouldn’t work,” Ral drawled lazily into his mouth, and Jace tried to come up with a retort. All that came out was a soft, pathetic-sounding whine.

            “I don’t know, he seems pretty incoherent,” Maree said with satisfaction. “Anyways, let’s get you two home. We could all use some sleep.”

            “How about a week’s worth?” Prax put in dreamily. “I bet there’s a Simic drug out there that’ll do it, too.”

            “Yeah,” Ral groaned. “Bed sounds great.”

            “It’s settled then,” Maree said. “Come on, Jace, you’ll both have to get up. Prax and I can’t haul your human asses back to bed alone.”

            “All right, all right,” Jace groused, and it was that simple act of annoyance that really brought home to him the fact that, finally, everything was going to be all right.

~

            Jace woke up to the sound of screaming. He tumbled out of the bed he’d been sharing with Ral, rolled onto his feet, and groped for the knife he’d left on the bedside table. Ral was right behind him as he staggered out into the main room of the apartment, only to find Maree in a heap on the floor with an unrolled parchment in front of her, shrieking.

            “Uh,” Jace said intelligently.

            “ _We got in_! Jace, Ral, _Krokt_ , they let us in, _they let us in_!”

            “Maree. More words,” Ral croaked. “Also, coffee. And maybe ease off on the screaming, I think Jace thought he had to kill someone else for you.”

            Maree took a deep breath. She was literally shaking, Jace noticed, and the piece of parchment she was holding was crumpled at the edges. “ _I-sent-our-plans-for-the-gauntlet-to-the-League-and-they-accepted-us-into-the-Guild-we’re-members-of-the-Izzet-I’m-so-excited-I’m-going-to-die_!” she rattled off all in one breath.

            There was a shattering noise. Ral had gone for a coffee mug and dropped it when Maree spoke. “ _Baal_ ,” he breathed, and Jace realized he wasn’t even sure he could speak. Instead of trying, he reached for Ral’s hand and squeezed it, hard, because this—this was overwhelming. This was everything the four of them had wanted, had barely believed in the possibility. And if it was hitting _Jace_ this hard, when he’d barely made it out of the Infinite Consortium, barely come to any conclusion as to what to do with his life, what must it be like for Ral, who’d been working towards this for literal years?

            Ral staggered slightly, squeezing back, then turned and kissed Jace, deep and probing and intense, pulling back before Jace could really begin to respond. “Fuck _yeah_ ,” he said, sounding almost dizzy. Sparks cascaded down from his hair, running across his shoulders and down to drip from the tips of his fingers to the floor. “I knew we could do it, I _knew_ it, I—”

            Something was burning behind Jace’s eyelids, and at first he thought was just close to tears. Then he realized it wasn’t that—it was the sensation of reality peeling backwards, concentrated at a spot just ahead of him. As Ral staggered to the side, still shaking his head in triumphant disbelief, the spot _opened_ , and Jace’s jaw dropped as the Eternities swept out to swallow Ral, leaving nothing behind but his startled shout.

            Jace shut his mouth, then opened it again.

            “Um,” said Maree. “What just happened?”

            “I’ll. I’ll just go. Get him back. Explain after I do,” Jace said numbly, turning around to go grab the infinity globe again. “Also I think you’d better make sure there’s a lot of alcohol around. We’re going to need it. It’s been a—hell of a day—and I’ve been awake for less than five minutes so far.”

            Probably a really good day, he acknowledged mentally, but he was going to need a lot of time to process things before he could come to a better conclusion on that front. Alcohol would help. Alcohol and his newly-sparked boyfriend. Who was apparently also a planeswalker.

            Yes. Alcohol and celebration and a lot of questions. But Jace couldn’t help a swift, inward smile. Things were really starting to look up.


End file.
